On Mar 17, 2004, at 9:09 AM, Nicole wrote:
Okay, I'm (almost) ready to take the plunge into X. I've found, read and continue to follow everyone that has upgraded to OS X - making note of any issues; but I'm still nervous that I'll miss something and end up with an unusable machine.
My machine: Stock Rev. 2 B&W 128 meg RAM 6gig HD Internal GV 56K modem Rage ATI 128 video card 32x CD-ROM and Zip drive
What I know: 1. I should ideally max out the RAM
This is an absolute. 128 mb ram is the bare rock-bottom minimum for OS X. You get a significant improvement pretty linearly up to 512 mb, and beyond, depending on what you're doing.
2. Get a much larger hard drive 3. Get at least a DVD-ROM/CD-R drive
Should I: 1. Settle for a 40 gig HD?
This should be fine, unless you want to mess with iMovie.
2. Consider a processor upgrade?
Yes. These are reasonably cheap right, now $175 will get you a 450MhZ G4
3. Upgrade the video card?
That will help, though not as much as memory.
4. Use a DVD-ROM that doesn't ship with Mac software (people have done it but...; and is there a performance difference between internal and external drives?
I just got a Toshiba DVD-R/RW-CD-R/RW on sale at Office Max for $80 after rebates(sold under the Mad Dog name). iDVD doesn't support it, but it is fully supported for disk burning otherwise., It's nice I've got all my stuff backed up for the first time in a long time. I'm running 10.2.8 on my beige, so 10.3 will certainly see it.
5. Use the 2 available PCI slots for...? I'm thinking a FW/USB combo card and maybe a TV tuner.
You already have FW and USB on that system, no real need for a card unless it's cheaper than buying hubs.
A good thing to consider is a faster IDE disk controller. Goosing the drive bus speed to 133 will help a lot with performance.
-- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group
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